New Delhi: Aadhaar Case Live Updates: Supreme Court Decision On Its Validity, Mandatory Linking Today – Does Aadhaar violate right to privacy? A decision on the matter will be taken by five senior most judges of the Supreme Court today. The 12-digit Unique Identification Number was made compulsory for services including bank accounts, PAN cards, cellphone services, passport and even driving licenses. Over one billion Indians have already signed up for Aadhaar, set up to be a secure form of digital identification for citizens to be used for government services.

For a record 38 days, the top court heard some 27 petitions – including one by former High Court judge K S Puttaswamy – that had challenged the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and called it a violation of the right to privacy.

The Centre has defended its decision to seed Aadhaar numbers with mobile phones, saying that the law was valid and allowed minimal invasion to ensure the right to life of millions of Indians to subsidies, benefits and services to the poorest of poor. Petitioners, however, claim that the huge Aadhaar database can easily be compromised.

The Centre had defended Aadhaar on several grounds – the biggest being that it ensured proper distribution of benefits to millions and prevented siphoning of funds. Aadhaar data, government and Aadhaar authority UIADI contended, is safe and cannot be breached.

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had come out in defence of Aadhaar, saying it represented the march of technology and those opposing it “have lagged behind in technology — either they cannot understand or are purposely spreading lies”.